23 replies to this topic

[Hawk'sGoodKnees]

A lot has been made of Matsuzaka's ability to wiggle out of jams but I think it's simpler than that. I haven't had a chance to look back at video from previous seasons to compare, but it's pretty clear that Daisuke has been tipping his pitches out of the windup in 2009.

Watch his hands above his head as he rocks back and begins to turn...

From his first start of the season on April 9:



When throwing the fastball, Daisuke pulls the ball out of the glove. In the same at bat, he finishes Iwamura with the changeup. Watch the hands.




Much quieter.

From Friday night:

Fastball to Brantley.



Curveball to Shoppach.



Now, admittedly, I pulled a few of the more obvious instances. But it looks fairly obvious, because of how far he pulls the ball out when throwing the fastball as he turns, that the batter can most likely pick that up pretty easily.

Bigger Bigger Bigger

Three stills of the changeup, curveball and fastball. This could help explain some of his troubles out of the windup and why he's better with runers on. I will try to compare to '07 and '08 videos when I get time later.

Edit: Videos

Edited by Hawk'sGoodKnees, 04 October 2009 - 11:31 AM.

[Seels]

Can you make it so the videos aren't private?

[SonsOfCharlieZink]

IIRC this was once of the things brought to Smoltz's attention once he joined the Cardinals pitching staff. He was tipping and the Sox did not detect it.

[CaptainLaddie]

Wow, that's pretty obvious. Like really obvious. Good eye.

Edited by CaptainLaddie, 04 October 2009 - 01:01 PM.

[Hawk'sGoodKnees]

I'm having problems with MLB.TV, but here's one fastball from Daisuke's September 21, 2008 start against Toronto.



The ball doesn't come out of the glove let alone appear to be lifted above it.

As soon as I get it working again I'll try to compare it to other pitches.

[Dionysus]

Wow. Can we get this to someone? I know it was done in the past, but this should really be brought to the Sox attention before Daisuke's postseason start,

[phragle]

When throwing the fastball, Daisuke pulls the ball out of the glove. In the same at bat, he finishes Iwamura with the changeup. Watch the hands.

He did it on every fastball he threw and on nothing off-speed?

[Foulkey Reese]

Wow. Can we get this to someone? I know it was done in the past, but this should really be brought to the Sox attention before Daisuke's postseason start,

How many times is this going to happen? Do other teams have this many issues with pitch tipping?

Between Byrd, Dicek, Beckett, and Smoltz this seems to be a big problem if this is all accurate.

[Hawk'sGoodKnees]

He did it on every fastball he threw and on nothing off-speed?

I think the 3rd inning Friday night was 1-2-3. He threw all 3 pitches. When I get home, I'll try to cut them up and run them together so you can see sequences consecutively.

[redsox11507]

I took it upon myself to grab some screencaps from the 3rd inning. I couldn't figure out how to do video, so I hope the Hawk can. The first, second, and eighth pitch look similar. The rest are obvious tips. I only looked at this one inning, but the only pitches where he took his hand out all the way were fastballs.



On all the pitches where his hand comes out, he goes back to his glove. This didn't happen on the second pitch. I tried to get all of them at the same point, but it's hard to pause mlb.tv accurately. I'll take a look at other innings quickly to see if it happens on other pitches.

edit: The 4th has a bunch of fastballs. Only 3 where his hand comes out noticeably farther than the other pitches.

Edited by redsox11507, 05 October 2009 - 04:03 PM.

[bosockboy]

I took it upon myself to grab some screencaps from the 3rd inning. I couldn't figure out how to do video, so I hope the Hawk can. The first, second, and eighth pitch look similar. The rest are obvious tips. I only looked at this one inning, but the only pitches where he took his hand out all the way were fastballs.



On all the pitches where his hand comes out, he goes back to his glove. This didn't happen on the second pitch. I tried to get all of them at the same point, but it's hard to pause mlb.tv accurately. I'll take a look at other innings quickly to see if it happens on other pitches.

Great job...looks pretty obvious he is tipping his fastball.

[rmurph3]

Awesome job, guys. I'm wondering, though, whether this is a tip that the batter can see? If he takes his hand out of the glove, but it's still behind the glove such that the batter doesn't see hand/ball, is it exploitable by the batter?

[redsox11507]

Awesome job, guys. I'm wondering, though, whether this is a tip that the batter can see? If he takes his hand out of the glove, but it's still behind the glove such that the batter doesn't see hand/ball, is it exploitable by the batter?

I noticed on one fastball in the fourth where the ball was still exposed after he turned. I didn't go back and look at the others. I imagine that wasn't the only one though. That would be pretty easy to spot.

If you check the fastball videos in the OP you can see that it is out when he turns.

Edited by redsox11507, 05 October 2009 - 05:08 PM.

[zenter]

How many times is this going to happen? Do other teams have this many issues with pitch tipping?

Between Byrd, Dicek, Beckett, and Smoltz this seems to be a big problem if this is all accurate.

This was something that was mentioned in the "Farrell: Part of the Problem?" thread. If I were the Sox, I'd put one of the video guys on pitch-tipping.

[dynomite]

He doesn't always tip (there are a few cases in which he doesn't take his hand out on a Fastball), but I just went through a couple of videos on mlb.com and it's pretty obvious when he does -- he's burying his hand in the glove on the Curveball and really isn't on the Fastball.

It also looks like he holds his glove back further above and behind his head on offspeed pitches, whereas it's slightly in front of his head and lower on the Fastball.

Fastball on 9/15 against LAofA:



Curveball on 9/20 against BAL:



Curveball on 9/26 against MFY:



Fastball on 9/26 vs. MFY:



It's subtle, and I'm not quite sure how different it looks from the batter's perspective, but especially if someone's on 2nd it's a big, big problem.

Edited by dynomite, 05 October 2009 - 05:42 PM.

[rmurph3]

Another point on picking this up from the hitter POV, from lurker import78:

I should preface this with I don't know for sure, but I would guess if you were looking at his forearm from the box you might be able to see the angle change as he brings the ball out (or doesn't move it) from his glove. I'd bet it is probably subtle but noticeable, especially if you're teammate gives you a cue to look for it.

[Hawk'sGoodKnees]

Here's video from the 3rd.



Edit:

The 4th has a bunch of fastballs. Only 3 where his hand comes out noticeably farther than the other pitches.

I agree, but I would discount the Carroll at bat because it looked like he was throwing BP get-me-over fastballs. It almost seems the more he gears up on the fastball, the more exposed the ball becomes.

Edited by Hawk'sGoodKnees, 05 October 2009 - 09:38 PM.

[BucketOBalls]

He doesn't always tip (there are a few cases in which he doesn't take his hand out on a Fastball), but I just went through a couple of videos on mlb.com and it's pretty obvious when he does -- he's burying his hand in the glove on the Curveball and really isn't on the Fastball.

If he doesn't always do it....could this be one of the reasons his command seems to comes and go? I.e. if it's something he does sometimes but not others? It's an idea at least.

[Adirondack jack]

Not sure when Daisuke started showing the ball like that during his delivery. But it made curious enough to quickly look at some of those old YouTube vids from his earlier days. I found one that is a few minutes long, but it shows clips from his high school days, NPB, Olympics and the WBC. In the limited footage, I did not note him doing that with the ball when throwing the FB, or any other pitch, fwiw.

Perhaps it began just this year, when trying to gear up to throw the FB and the deteriorating shoulder wasn't cooperating. I think any conversation regarding Dice's poor results, this year, begins with the health of the shoulder causing the lack of velocity and command with the FB. Although I wouldn't discount the possibility of players getting an early read on his pitches with his very active windup.

[Sprowl]

Perhaps it began just this year, when trying to gear up to throw the FB and the deteriorating shoulder wasn't cooperating. I think any conversation regarding Dice's poor results, this year, begins with the health of the shoulder causing the lack of velocity and command with the FB. Although I wouldn't discount the possibility of players getting an early read on his pitches with his very active windup.

This is a great thread: kudos to Hawks'GoodKnees. The main physiological effect I can think of that would result from separating the ball hand from the glove hand during the windup would be to drive a more exaggerated slinging motion from his new 3/4 angle, consistent with trying to whip (rather than power-drive) a fastball toward the plate. That could also help explain what looks to me to be unusually strong horizontal movement on the fastball, in spite of reduced fastball velocity compared to 2007 and 2008. Vertical rise has declined a little bit in consequence, as one would expect from a lower arm angle. So far, this slower, slung fastball is working for DiceK: batters find it difficult to fathom, and are not (yet) making good contact off it.

A question for those with sharper eyes than mine: is there any noticeable difference in Matsuzaka's arm speed for the different pitch varieties? Batters might not pick out the ball-glove separation, but they might pick out the change in arm speed that results from trying to whip a ball to home plate.

This is quite a reversal of form for Matsuzaka: back in 2007, we used to think that he was great from the windup, but mediocre from the stretch. Now there might be some advantage to his pitching entirely from the stretch.

[joyofsox]

Batters vs Dice in 2009

CODE

                 PA   AVG   OBP   SLG    OPS
  
With Men On     146  .254  .345  .389   .734
With No One On  137  .398  .460  .683  1.143

[Noah]

It's subtle, and I'm not quite sure how different it looks from the batter's perspective, but especially if someone's on 2nd it's a big, big problem.

If he were pitching from the windup with men on base, we'd have bigger problems to talk about.

[dynomite]

If he were pitching from the windup with men on base, we'd have bigger problems to talk about.

You're assuming he never tips from the stretch. I haven't seen it happen from the stretch, but that doesn't mean it never happens, or that he doesn't have a different tip from the stretch.

[Flynn4ever]

This is a great thread: kudos to Hawks'GoodKnees.

A question for those with sharper eyes than mine: is there any noticeable difference in Matsuzaka's arm speed for the different pitch varieties? Batters might not pick out the ball-glove separation, but they might pick out the change in arm speed that results from trying to whip a ball to home plate.

This is quite a reversal of form for Matsuzaka: back in 2007, we used to think that he was great from the windup, but mediocre from the stretch. Now there might be some advantage to his pitching entirely from the stretch.

I agree this thread has really livened up these off days, and given me an excuse to watch Dice-K pitch without needing Xanax! As for Sprowl's question, I didn't take a stopwatch to it, but his arm-speeds in these vids seem consistent from pitch to pitch, and his arm slot looks very similar each time to me as well. I have to think that a vast majority of hitters wouldn't be able to spot the ball coming out of the glove, but I bet the Vlad Guerreros and A-Frauds of this world could if they did their homework, so I hope that Farrell addresses this. It may be possible that Dice can't change it (he seems...stubborn,) but if we see the pitcher who has been on the mound the past four games, I like our chances and a refill of Xanax.